Kadar Brock

The New Yorker explains why addition and subtraction are at the heart of his work

Kadar Brock adds layers and layers of paint to some of his pieces, which he then sands down to a worn, exposed minimum. His latest series takes the forgotten scraps from this process and then transforms them into bright, abstract multi-layered beauty.

“All these pieces are part of a larger process and ecology. The paintings that are dredged are used to make other paintings that are almost like ruins or ghosts. They’re taking a romantic relationship with gesture, mark-making and content and placing it into the realm of ritual, roleplaying and performance.

I think about the painting process as little rituals, in the sense that daily activities and labours are rituals. They’re ways of constructing our time and giving it some meaning, or at least passing that time. I got into abstraction because I saw it as a way to talk about all these new-agey things my folks raised me on. It was art that talked about weird spiritual and psychological things and belief systems. I guess I still see it like that – it’s a way to talk about these interior things and set up shared experiences without getting too didactic.”